


In The Aftermath (In The Spaces In Between).

by Lanna Michaels (lannamichaels)



Category: Highlander: The Series
Genre: Gen, Podfic Available, Post-The Gathering, The Gathering
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-08-29
Updated: 2009-08-29
Packaged: 2017-10-02 18:52:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 599
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9530
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lannamichaels/pseuds/Lanna%20Michaels
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Gathering is over. They have proclaimed it so.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In The Aftermath (In The Spaces In Between).

They do not leave behind obituaries in the newspaper.

When they go, they go quickly.

When they go, they go anonymously.

None could blame the Watchers, truly, for keeping records, because history is written by the victors, and there are none so victorious as those who do not fight.

But records were facts viewed from the outside. They were not truths. They were not memories.

They were not what Immortals so desperately needed, here, in the days after the Gathering.

It hadn't been One. It could never have been One. But it was a group. A coalition. An alliance. We do not hunt of our own, but work together for peace. A strange peace, to be true. The Watchers did not understand; they called them by an insult, but the Watchers never stood up, never died. The united killed those who would not put down their sword, who would not repudiate the Gathering and the Game.

And, here, as the dust settles on their brave new world, they are the only ones left.

There will be more, of course. They still feel the tug of potentiality in strangers on the street. They know their ranks will be repopulated. They will grow and grow, perhaps even to larger numbers than before the Game. But it will be under new rules, a new philosophy. They will never hoist a sword above a neck, they will never absorb a Quickening.

They will live in peace, or they will die.

And so many have died. None have emerged unscathed. For some, a teacher. For others, a student. For far too many, a lover. For each, there were those who did not stop, who would not stop, perhaps could not have stopped. And so they were stopped, terminally.

They do not leave obituaries in the paper. Theirs is not that sort of life.

But they remember, and they grieve, and they mourn.

Theirs are strange memorials, to be sure. Those who never knew their secret would never have suspected. Those who did know thought it the height of perversion.

Their memories will fade with time; they know this to be true. But memorializing for its own sake brings its own comfort. It is enough to reflect. It is enough to share. It is enough to remember, for now.

The eldest of them can remember Babylon, the youngest of them does not remember the Soviet Union. But time tests them all. The young learn, the elders teach. The world is changing around them; they must be ready to change with it. They learn from each other, and go on.

Their memorials find their ways out into the world in bits and pieces and shards. The elders revive funeral rites, the young invent them from pure imagination. Someone starts a journal. It is nothing to rival the Watchers, but even the Watchers do not rival the Watchers these days. They are all but shadows of their former selves, the Immortals and Watchers alike.

The Immortals sit to the side and allow their skills to fade. They learn to forget the sword and the hunt. The Watchers forget their craft, they are mere historians now, students of Immortal history, who keep watch over the legends, but do not add to them. All are harmless now. But it is their victory, and so must be content.

This is what they have fought for. This is what they have done. This is their peace. And they are content.

But this is not how the legends will tell it in the future.

(We remake our nightmares in our own image.)

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [In The Aftermath (In The Spaces In Between) [Podfic]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/362859) by [tinypinkmouse_podfic (tinypinkmouse)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tinypinkmouse/pseuds/tinypinkmouse_podfic)




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